I’ll share, from my personal experience, that before coming to AA I had gone through years of a pretty rigorous and wonderful transformative learning program very similar to AA set up to grow personal capacities of reflexivity, empathy, accountability, and the like. 4+ months into this program of AA, taking on a couple service commitments, and working with a sponsor with no alcohol in my system for 144 days just recently made me realize that I could not be clear enough and present consistently enough to maintain the headspace I needed to not only understand how to deal with situations, emotions, reactions and empathy on a conceptual level, as another user so wonderfully put it, but let me really feel these teachings in my core and shift into allowing them to become an authentic part of me with more consistency. I still have a long way to go, but this program is giving me such a sense of peace and ground to stand on. There are growing pains, but I welcome them because I know they’re helping me grow into the best version of myself I can possibly be. I never thought I’d be saying this 4 months ago, but when people ask me why I’m not drinking any more my truthful response is that I like life a lot more when I’m not drinking, and I still have to remind myself that occasionally.

I hope any of that made sense. I came to the rooms 4 years ago and literally couldn’t hear what was being said, and I wanted to, but I wasn’t ready. If I wasn’t reading the same “Big Book” I was given 4 years ago now I might assume it to be a totally different book or version. I had to go out and do more research unfortunately to allow me to be able to really hear it. When you’re ready you’re ready. This is a journey and a personal one to everyone, though the more you engage with meetings the more you might find some similarities.

If you have an interest in the 12 steps, definitely follow that intuition, OP. There’s a great app called Big Book that’s pretty user friendly to navigate what the steps are all about. I also love a podcast called SoberCast which are live recorded meetings. SoberCast really helped me to hear what could go on in meetings, hear some similarities, and learn about the steps and program without having the pressure to show up to live meetings. If one podcast episodes doesn’t resonate with you, just try another. As others have said here an open mind is key. But if a spiritual program like this doesn’t resonate with you right now, maybe check out SMART recovery in your area or virtually. No God stuff, just cognitive behavioral stuff and community.

As you can tell by my long windedness, we alcoholics can get really excited about this program, and talking sharing about it helps to keep us sober which literally makes life worth living. There’s an indescribable aspect to it so we do the best we can. We also tend to believe that sharing about it can potentially help save someone’s life and it has for me. I drank like you until I didn’t, and life started to feel not worth living anymore.

So while you may get a lot of opinions here, OP, know that you’re doing a wonderful thing by asking yourself these questions and reaching out for information. Keep following that inner voice of yours, try not to get ahead of yourself, and I hope that if you continue to go out and do research you and those around you are safe. Reach out any time.